Page 3 of Blindsided

Thankfully, my response hadn’t been totally out of line with what Alabaster expected, and I caught his nod of approval. “Glad you were able to join us this morning. With your brother indisposed for the foreseeable future, your mother and I—”

“Dad.” My mom’s manicured nail tapped on the desktop as she tried to interrupt. Our mother was always the picture of put-togetherness. Even at whatever-the-fuck predawn hour, she was fully dressed, her hair done and makeup on. As a child, I’d thought she slept fully ready for the day. I’d screamed and cried one morning when she came downstairs in her pajamas and I’d thought an intruder was in our house.

The old man didn’t miss a beat. “We’ve been discussing Aston’s mo—”

The line went dead, my mother’s finger disconnecting the call before her father could say anything else.

My dad sat on the edge of the desk my mom was standing behind. He was still in his pajama pants, an oversized and threadbare sweatshirt slightly askew on his shoulders and his hair sticking up randomly from his head.

The two were complete opposites in almost every way. As a child, I’d spent nights questioning why they were still together, though I’d given up thinking about it before I’d reached adulthood. He was still there for whatever reason, but he wasn’t there for me or my sister when we needed him most.

He hadn’t had an opinion on our future careers, or he hadn’t been allowed to have one, but I’d seen him put his foot down from time to time. When he said his piece, he usually got his way. I was pretty sure he used that as his secret weapon and chose to use it wisely and with great discretion.

My mom took a seat in her chair and steepled her fingers in front of her face, then took a deep breath and gave me a look I knew was trouble. “Francis.” Her tone was all business, brooking no argument from me before she ever got to whatever bombshell she was about to drop on me. “With Aston… needing some time out of the public eye for the time being, you will be taking his next project.”

I groaned as the dawning realization sank in. “Mom, no. I know nothing about—”

She clucked her tongue, her head shaking sharply and cutting off my protest. “You are the most logical person for the job, Francis. Your sister can’t leave school, your father is busy with his own work, and I have the business to run.”

“I have a job too.” A job I was damn good at.

Even as the words left my mouth, I knew my protest was going to fall on deaf ears. My mom would do anything to protect Aston, leaving me—once again—to be the expendable one. “I’ve got more meetings and negotiations lined up in the next four months than I care to think about. There is no way I can just up and abandon those accounts.”

She waved my concerns off as though they were a pesky bug. “Who said anything about abandoning them? Jackson will take them for you.”

My mouth fell open in shock. I’d tried to get my mom to agree to let Jackson take one of my site visits earlier in the year and she’d insisted that it was absolutely impossible because my cousin “wasn’t ready” despite it being the easiest hotel on my roster.

Thankfully, Carissa took the words from my mouth. “Aren’t you the one who has refused every chance for Jackson to help Link because he was too inexperienced? Why the sudden change?” Her eyebrows had risen higher and higher on her forehead as she spoke. By the end she sounded and looked more like our mom than I cared to admit.

Mom crossed her arms over her chest and stared at my sister, giving her a look that would have made me back down and apologize, but Carissa only cocked her head to the side while waiting for a response. Finally, our mom huffed. “Fine,” she said, the word coming out clipped and more than a little annoyed. “Jackson isn’t mature enough to be the face of ownership for a hockey team.”

“Yet suddenly he’s mature enough to take on nearly a billion dollars’ worth of portfolios for me?” The words were out of my mouth without my brain’s input. This entire thing felt like more of a punishment than anything else. My portfolio for Barrington Holdings was one of the most valuable in the real estate sector of the company. I’d overcome a number of Aston-sized obstacles to secure luxury real estate buildings from Milan to Paris to London to Sydney, and most recently New York City.

Just the previous quarter I’d inked a deal to finally purchase a storefront on Fifth Avenue in New York City after spending nearly a year convincing the previous holding company that my brother would have nothing to do with the deal. I’d spent the last month in Manhattan finalizing a storefront that would bring the company millions of dollars in extra rental fees each year, and that was just one of six separate retail spaces the building housed, not including the residential apartments above the retail space.

I rubbed at my temples. The headache I’d been trying to hold at bay had won the battle and was throbbing behind my eyes. “I need Advil.” I didn’t make it off the couch before a bottle of pain reliever and a glass of water materialized in front of me.

“Listen, I know this isn’t ideal,” Dad said softly, all the while urging me to take the items from him. “Hopefully, it will be temporary, until we can find a buyer.”

I took the bottle and water from my dad, poured a few pills into my hand, and downed them with the water in the glass, then looked up at my father. “Dad, I know nothing about hockey! That’s Aston’s thing! He’s the one that bought a hockey team!”

Nashville fucking Tennessee. My brother had gotten it in his head that he wanted to buy a hockey team. With a trust fund that had vested years earlier, no job to speak of, and zero responsibilities, he hadn’t thought twice about making the multimillion-dollar purchase.

Aston, despite being slated to take over Barrington Holdings when our mom retired, had no idea how to run a business.

He’d dropped out of college after his freshman year, hadn’t actually worked a day in his life, and my mom continued to cover for him. She was convinced Aston was going through a normal stage of life where he was rebelling before finally settling down. It didn’t matter that Carissa and I had been expected to work for the family business since we’d been in high school, or that I was two years younger than Aston and closing multimillion-dollar real estate deals regularly. No one could convince Naomi Barrington that her oldest son was a trust fund brat content to live off his inherited money and not work for anything.

According to the last conversation my brother had had with me, he’d picked the AHL team up because it was available and sounded “okay enough.”

And now I was going to be left to give up everything I had worked so hard on in order to accommodate my brother’s impulse control issues.

My dad pinched the bridge of his nose, a sure sign that he did not agree with my mom but didn’t have the power or sway to change things. Or maybe this just didn’t warrant putting his foot down and telling my mom and grandfather to pound sand.

Carissa’s hand gripped my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Lincoln.”

I knew she was, but it also felt hollow. I wished my mom or dad were the ones saying it, understanding that my life was once again going to be thrown into turmoil. Instead, I gave a heavy sigh before pleading my case one more time. “Mom, I am not cut out to be the owner of a sports team! I don’t want to be, either. Hell, I couldn’t tell a hockey puck from a hole in the wall.”

My plea did nothing to sway her decision. “Francis Lincoln Barrington-Lewis, the decision is final.”

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